


Mustang, Firebird

by ljs



Category: Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rockford Files
Genre: Crossover Pairing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although the timelines of these two series don't <em>exactly</em> mesh, let's play What If...</p><p>What if Mary Richards drove her Mustang from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to start a new job and life, and met a handsome private investigator with a Firebird?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mustang, Firebird

Mary Richards is so intent on the man walking into the office building -- the man she needs to figure out how to approach for background on a story she's producing -- that she almost doesn't stop her Mustang in time. She _does_ stop, and pull into the next parking space, but it's too close for her comfort.

Certainly the man who gets out of the Firebird she was inches away from hitting isn't amused, despite the wry smile on his handsome face. (And he _is_ handsome, in a high-cheekboned, very masculine way -- tall and slouchy-cool, despite his off-the-rack sportcoat and battered cowboy boots peeking out from under the hems of his dress slacks. Not that she _cares_ about those things...)

"Hey, there. Parking-lot rules of the road too much for you?" he says, deep and drawling.

She doesn't have time to do her full shudder-and-apology -- and she promised herself she wouldn't apologize so much any more, anyway, during the long drive from Minneapolis to L.A. She contents herself with a semi-flustered "I'm really sorry, it's my fault. You see, I've got an appointment with that man--"

Who's gone now, disappeared inside.

The Firebird man's smile changes. "Jack Parda? Funny, I do too." He holds the car door open for her as she gets out: she's close enough to note he smells like the ocean. He's better-looking, if slightly more worn, up close. Then he leans in, just a little, and Mary feels a rush she hasn't felt in a while. "Gotta tell you, Mr Parda isn't a good guy."

"No." To hide her full fluster, she messes with her handbag as he shuts her door. "I'm pretty sure he's a con artist."

"I'm pretty sure he is, too," he says. Hesitates. "You working an angle?"

She can't quite read him, but she says, "I'm working a story. I'm a producer at KTLA, doing research..."

"A television journalist," he says, and then smiles again, big and truly amused, and she thinks, _oh boy_. "Guess I'd better get in there first and get what I need to get."

"Are you... are you a journalist, too?"

"No, ma'am. I'm a private investigator." He fumbles in his pockets for a minute, takes out several business cards, squints at the first couple and discards them, and then gives her one.

 **Jim Rockford Investigations. Cold cases only.**   
**200 dollars a day, plus expenses.**

"Cold cases?" she says, before flustering again as she offers her hand. "Oh, sorry. Hi, Mr Rockford. I'm Mary Richards."

"Maybe not so cold this time." His hand is big, and warm around hers. "Hello, Mary Richards. Call me Jim."

...............................

Jack Parda doesn't pan out -- he's lying, of course, that's what he does, but his lies are perfunctory. Jim doesn't think he's involved in the Martinelli con.

This Mary Richards doesn't seem to think so, either. Her pretty shoulders are slumping as they walk out of the office building.

She's entirely too pretty for a journalist... no, not pretty. That's a word for models and starlets, the women he brushes against in his daily life. Mary Richards is... clean.

He doesn't know what he means by that, but he knows he kind of likes it. Almost as much as her great legs.

"So, Mr. Rockford--"

"I said, call me Jim."

"Jim." She smiles at him, and he sees cleverness, character, and a certain fish-out-of-water quality, not naivete exactly but next door to it. He reckons she's new to this town.

And he reckons they're both staring, they've lost the thread of conversation, and after a quick mental check of the money in his wallet -- eleven dollars; he really needs to do some collection work -- he says, "Why don't we talk about this not-so-cold case over lunch?"

.................................

The hood of his Firebird is warm, even if the January desert wind is a little cool. Mary deliberately doesn't think about what dirt her suit must be picking up, and wriggles herself into a slightly more comfortable seat.

When he asked her to lunch, she hadn't really expected to end up at this Fatburger stand, eating greasy goodness out of paper wrappings and sitting on the hood of his car like they were teenagers. He probably doesn't have a lot of money, she thinks, and then dismisses the thought as irrelevant.

"So tell me about the case you're working. Barry Martinelli, right? Running some kind of stock-scam?" she says again, and dips a French fry in his pool of ketchup.

When she looks up, he's smiling at her. "Let's not talk about cases," he says.

She's not a novice when it comes to dating, but... "We'll talk about other things after we talk about this case," she says firmly, in her best executive-producer voice.

"You're gonna be a handful," he murmurs, and then steals the half-eaten fry from her fingers and pops it in his mouth.

She shouldn't find that attractive, but she does.

............................................

Jim always eats dinner with his dad on Tuesdays (at least when he's not working on a case), and Rocky's sitting on the steps of Jim's trailer on Malibu Beach when at sunset he pulls up after a fruitless afternoon of gumshoeing.

"Where you been, son?" Rocky says, and then, sharply, "Has something happened?"

Jim unfolds himself from the car, the chicken he just bought in his hand. Sunset on the water's strong tonight, all orange and pink on blue. "Why do you think something's happened?"

His father's canny eyes narrow. "'Cause I know you."

 _I met a woman_ , Jim wants to say. Except, hell, he meets lots of women. This clever Minneapolis girl shouldn't be that special.

But he thinks of her sitting on the hood of his car, easy and laughing and yet focused, big eyes and blowing hair and tidy professional skirt hiked up on her thighs. Mary Richards. Yes.

"You're imagining things. Let's just go broil us up some bird, Rocky," he says. But before they go inside, his hand lingers on the hood of the Firebird, just where she sat.

.......................................

Mary stands on the tiny balcony of her Santa Monica apartment and stares out at the night. If it were light, and if she went on tiptoe, she could just see the ocean from here. She can smell it, though, even in the dark.

She swirls the last of her white wine around, then goes inside and picks up the phone.

Her best friend answers in her sleepiest voice. "Ma, I told you--"

"Hi, Rhoda." Mary's smiling, until she looks at the clock. "Oh no, oh Rhoda, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting New York's three hours ahead, or behind, or--"

"Slow down, kid," Rhoda says on a chuckle. "So who's the guy?"

"Who said anything about a guy?" Mary says, with an attempt at dignity.

"Mare, you call me on Wednesdays and Sundays. I got it on my calendar, you're more regular than the Pill. If you're calling me now, it's either an emergency or a man, and you don't sound tearful."

"Oh, Rhoda," Mary says, and sinks down into the recliner she bought when she first moved out here. It's too big for her, she doesn't know why the brown leather called to her in the store.

A yawn from cross-country. "Spill, kid. Who is he, what does he do, what's he like?"

"His name is Jim," she says, and then, although she doesn't know why, "He's going to make me cry someday. But not today."

.............................

When Dennis calls, Jim is playing solitaire at his desk, drinking coffee, and trying not to look at the piece of paper with Mary's phone number.

"You working something about Martinelli?" Dennis says, without bothering with a greeting.

"Hello to you too, Detective." Jim sips at his coffee. "I might be. Why?"

"Because his second-in-command's body just got thrown into the LA River. Long Beach, by the Brison warehouse."

"Oh, that's gotta hurt," Jim says, playing for time while he thinks.

"Yeah? Well, you come down here and tell me what you know."

"I could tell you from here, Dennis. Nothin'."

"See you as soon as you can get here," Dennis says, and hangs up.

"I don't want to get messed up with the police," Jim says to the uncaring walls. "Cold cases only."

Then, muttering to himself, he shrugs into the jacket he's hung on the back of his chair. Before he can stop himself, he picks up Mary's number and shoves it in his pocket.

The first thing he sees when he gets to the crime scene isn't the usual yellow tape, or the cop cars, or even Dennis Becker's shiny little detective ass. No, it's a couple of unwieldy TV trucks, and lights...

And a clean, clever Minneapolis girl talking to someone behind the camera.

Jim Rockford doesn't believe in fate, except as a way the cosmos likes to screw with people. But there she is, and he smiles.

.........................................

He asks her out to dinner that evening. They end up at a taco stand near the beach. Spanish music plays somewhere nearby, and there's the constant rush of passing trucks and diesel belches.

Mary thinks she should be appalled. When Jim leans in to say something about the case in her ear, however, she thinks this is the most romantic place she could be.

Their first kiss is at orange-and-pink-and blue sunset, with spices and peppers on their tongues. He looms over her, broad shoulders against the light, strong hand on her back, and she has to hold onto the door of her Mustang to keep standing. She feels herself washing away.

.................................

"I work alone, Mary," he says patiently, two days later.

"I'm not working _with_ you. I'm working at the same time as you."

"That doesn't make any sense," he begins, but she's already off, going through the door of the County Records Office. She's got a death-grip on that notebook she's carrying.

"Shit," he says under his breath, and then hustles after her. He goddamn hates to hustle.

..................................

"Let me do the talking," he says, once they've got the name of another possible lead -- George Orleans, someone Barry Martinelli's done business with in the past.

"I'm working this case for myself, Jim," she starts to say, but then he reaches a long arm into the backseat of his Firebird and she's momentarily distracted by his nearness. "What are you doing?"

He's pulled out a sack of... business cards. Squinting, he looks at a couple and then discards them before choosing one. "Okay," he says, his drawl very pronounced, "I'm Jim Barone, country boy with money to burn, and you're my secretary Mary."

"I've fought a long time not to be a secretary," she says dryly.

"Don't worry. I know who you are." His dark eyes smile at her, his mouth soft. "It's just play-acting, darlin'."

But then he kisses her with that soft mouth, and it's not play-acting at all.

..................................

She's fussing at him even as she unlocks her apartment door. "Jim Rockford, I _told_ you to keep your head still or you'd start bleeding again, and now you are--"

"Sorry," he says, and puts his fingers on his cut cheek in a vain attempt to staunch the flow. (Her scold, his blood: both need to stop.)

"Come in." She pushes him inside and over to a big recliner he'd say was made for him.

He sinks down with a muted groan. She's already moving, heading off to what he guesses is the bathroom. With her out of the way, he takes his fingers off. Blood, blood everywhere.

Well, it's a violent world. Who knew that bastard Orleans could hit that well?

Jim looks around at Mary's place. She snapped on a lamp as they came in, and the small place is awash with color. Lots of lady knick-knacks everywhere, and humorous sweet touches like the big _M_ hung on her wall. Looks like her. Looks a lot more uptown than he is.

Before he can work himself into a depression, however, she's back, washcloth in hand, purpose in her eyes. She kneels by the side of the recliner and puts the cloth to his cut. "Just let me get this."

"'s long as you don't get me with iodine, I appreciate it." He manages a smile. She looks so pretty when she's playing doctor.... "You're good with blood, I see."

She folds over the washcloth one more time, presses in again. "My father's a doctor. Heart surgeon, retired."

Yeah, that's uptown. "My dad's a trucker. Retired."

"That does explain your driving," she says, and takes the washcloth away.

"What's the matter with my driving?" he says.

But she's gazing unreadably at him, and he loses what he's going to say in the depths of her eyes.

"Oh, Jim," she says suddenly, and she takes his lap, she takes his mouth, she takes his heart.

.............................

She's never had a man like this in her bed.

She doesn't like to let men stay overnight, as a rule. She's slept over at boyfriends' houses, of course, but her space is _hers_.

Except now there's a tall, solidly built man wrapped in her sheets, wrapping her up in long arms and legs and hardness, all ocean-scent and male sweat and left-over tang of blood. He's got her legs up --thank God she still dances, still has the flexibility to handle him -- and one hand between them, and....

"Oh, _Jim_ ," she says, and rakes his back with her fingers so that she doesn't scream.

He kisses her then, deep but gentle, before he murmurs, "Yeah, I knew you'd be a handful." Which she'd protest, but then he's sliding in, and she is full up with joy, and lust, and him.

..........................

He wakes to the smell of coffee, and to cool sheets. He'd rather wake to her, he thinks, and then stretches tentatively, feeling his aches. A whole night's worth of sex stronger than an earthquake, and he's not as young as he used to be.

When he wanders out to the tiny galley kitchen, she's there, cradling a coffee cup while she looks out the window at the sunrise. Old worn T-shirt, bare legs, mussed hair, the start of her own crows-feet around misty dark eyes -- God, he doesn't know how he's lived without this.

And then she turns to him, and smiles. "'Morning, Jim. Coffee?"

"Sure," he says, "thanks," and then wraps his hand in brown hair and looks out at orange-and-pink glorious sky.

Mary Richards. Yes.


End file.
